About 25,000 people have been displaced by the 7.2-magnitude quake, most voluntarily, said Alfredo Escobedo, civil protection chief for Baja California state. They are mainly in farming villages southwest of Mexicali, near the epicenter.

"Right now, people are sleeping outside because they're afraid," Escobedo said. "They go to work at day and go home, but they don't want to spend the night inside."

He estimated 200 to 300 homes were destroyed in the quake that shook both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border, but authorities did not have a precise count. Many of the homes filled with mud and water that seeped up from the ground, he said. The death count remained at two: a 94-year-old man and a transient.

About 700 aftershocks greater than magnitude-2.5 had been recorded since the quake Sunday. The largest in the sequence, a magnitude-5.7, hit hours after the main tremor. A magnitude-4.7 shock hit early Tuesday, centered 30 miles south of Guadalupe Victoria.

The canal-laden region of farming villages cracked when the ground shook violently Sunday, spewing water through large crevices in the rich farm soil and concrete floors.

That's how the Briseno family in Oaxaca watched all seven of their homes sink to ruin on a single block, forcing them to sleep in their cars indefinitely.

"The earth just opened up, like a pencil goes across a sheet of paper, like a stripe goes across the floor," said Diona Garcia Briseno, the oldest of five siblings, who lost a home that she shared with her husband and their children, ages 18 and 10.

Garcia Briseno, 38, saw the ground crack and cough up water as she waited out the quake outside. After the shaking, she went inside to find that her concrete floor was gurgling muddy water from underground. It lasted about six hours.

"It didn't come out with lots of force, but it was constant," she said.

Raul Lepe, 45, pointed to a 30-foot-long opening that ran across a dirt lot and spewed "small volcanoes of water" behind his clothing store. The floor of his home sustained cracks, forcing him to sleep in his pickup truck until an inspector visits.

No one appears to have suffered as much property loss as the Briseno family, whose ancestors were one of the town's early settlers. Cruz Briseno arrived in Oaxaca after the 1910 Mexican Revolution. Raquel Briseno, his daughter, divided the family plot, giving a piece each to four children, keeping one for herself and leaving two for her brothers. The small, cinderblock homes on the dirt road are tightly spaced.